Awaiting
by Thyme In Her Eyes
Summary: Mask of the Phantasm: At the scene of her first murder, Bruce and Andrea find each other again.


Awaiting

by Thyme In Her Eyes

_Author's Note: _I haven't written anything new for _Mask of the Phantasm _in a while, which is a shame and a sin, so here's a little something. This Andrea-centric ficlet is set right at the film's start, but contains spoilers nonetheless. And just to disclaim, I don't own the characters or the franchise. Now enjoy, and please remember that all feedback is appreciated.

**-- AWAITING --**

_One down._

The car horn blares, and deep inside her grim mask, Andrea Beaumont smiles. For years, she honestly believed she'd never smile again, but hearing that ongoing and ear-splitting noise works dark miracles on her lips and her spirit. She knows that a body's weight is what's pressing down on the horn – the body of a defeated and broken enemy – and the world somehow seems better and bleaker inside the same moment. She's spent years in training for this night, planned and prepared for so long, but she's never killed a man before, and never guessed it could be so easy in the end.

The Batman only leans over the edge of the shattered wall, only stares down where the car's midair path took it and doomed it. She lingers and observes from the shadows; carefully studying the opponent she'd rather not face. Everything about the Dark Knight's body language – the stillness of his contemplation – confirms that he's staring down at a wrecked car and a dead man, and her pride swells. His shoulders and back are knotted with failure, and when she notices this, something soft and sorry slices at the pride she feels and carves strips of it from her.

_Bruce...is that you in there?_

Very intently, she watches him and considers. The pieces aren't too difficult to put together, after all. Bruce was planning _something_ when she met him, something he wanted to hide from her and the world; something that fired and scarred him. He was a good man – _the best –_ but haunted and lost, and so full of pain, guilt, grief and secrets that it nearly drove them apart once. She still remembers what it was like to feel that only half of him really belonged to her while the other part belonged to the specters of his parents and the shadow cast by their deaths. She'd seen him fight, spar and train like a soldier, watched him stand up for justice, and discovered so many weird and brutal-looking injuries he never even tried to explain. Once, she found him on his knees and weeping in front of a tombstone, pleading for understanding and forgiveness, all for her sake. That was the part of him she loved most and still loves now – the part of him she'd so badly wanted to understand and heal.

He'd had a Plan (capital P, always that unspoken capital P) for his life, and she'd disrupted it. She'd made him doubt and turn away from the great and mysterious mission he'd seemingly set himself. He made a promise and carried a burden, and she'd made him yearn to be released from it. For a moment, Andrea remembers, she actually succeeded and the world glowed gold for one brilliant, beautiful evening. For an evening, they'd both had so much, and then so far to fall.

She still wonders about his promise and his Plan, and if he ever went ahead with it. If what she's read in the papers is true, Gotham's enigmatic Batman first appeared in the city almost immediately after she disappeared from it; possibly just a coincidence. She can't be so sure of the exact truth yet, but the pieces of what she knows are still so easy to put together, and her suspicions feel hard and heavy.

Could the dark vigilante she stares at right now, this creature of night and justice so like her and yet so different, really be her Bruce? Is he here at the scene of her first kill? Is she standing a pathetic thirty feet away from the great love of her life, staring him down and summing him up as he watches the results of her work? And most of all, does this mean they'll have to face and fight each other soon?

She draws herself together and toughens her resolve, because in a way, none of it matters. Under her death's head, her tattered cloak, her smoke tricks and gleaming sickle blade, there's absolutely no room for humanity or weakness – or second chances. She's waited far too long to have doubts. She has a Plan of her own now, and she won't let him get in the way. Even if it is Bruce, he can't stop her. And if that means they have to be enemies, then so be it. She paid the price a long time ago.

For a slow and sorrowing moment, Andrea gazes at her lost love with soft eyes and a burden of regrets. Then the mood shifts and dissolves, and before disappearing again into a thin and crooked swirl of smoke, the Phantasm prepares for battle and awaits her foe.

**-- FIN --**


End file.
